


The Time Traveller's Wife

by wildandwhirlingwords



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 1960s, Adlock, Blind Character, Blindness, Dancing, F/M, Flirting, Major Character Injury, Muse!Irene, Musician!Sherlock, Non-Explicit Sex, Nudity, Nurse!Irene, Time Travel, Tudor Era, Victorian, World War I, poet!sherlock, soldier!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-05-14 23:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5763109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildandwhirlingwords/pseuds/wildandwhirlingwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her image, sealed forever inside that pocket watch, haunts Sherlock through the ages. Wherever he finds himself, whoever he has become, his mind is filled with fractured memories - a pair of rouged lips, a heady, floral fragrance that is half-remembered from another life, the sound of a woman's laughter, but no name. He can only call her The Woman. </p><p>A collection of Adlock one-shots, set throughout history. Chapters 4-5: WWI. Captain William Sherlock Scott Holmes of the London Regiment sustains a life-changing injury on the Western Front. How it changes his life remains to be seen. </p><p>Additional tags to be added, week on week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1895

“May I prevail upon you to sit still for just a moment longer, Miss Adler?” The photographer’s request is met with a sigh of irritation that his subject does not bother to conceal as she reclines back against the velvet chaise, long elegant limbs draped invitingly out, posed in a manner reminiscent of a Greek or Roman statue. 

Except much more mobile, to the growing irritation of the man flapping around the camera, sweat beading on his brow. She reaches lazily for a fan; it is warm, and the gentle breeze coming through the window is doing nothing to cool her off. She has been sitting for hours.

At the slightest twitch of her hand, the photographer mops himself up and walks over, pulling the fan out of her grip. “Still!” Irene gives another martyred sigh and adjusts her position just to spite him, and just enough so that she can look him directly in the eye. 

“These corsets are dreadfully uncomfortable, sir. If you make me sit much longer I might be tempted just to take it off…” The ruddy-faced photographer turns positively fuchsia and trips over his tongue as he tries to form some kind of retort. Irene’s laugh is closer to a cackle, and it echoes around her parlour as she takes a wicked kind of pleasure from his discomfort. When she speaks again, however, her tone is dripping with honey, with an innocence that is so obviously false. “What? Are you not used to hearing women speak in such a way?” 

“Tsk, tsk, Miss Adler, misbehaving again?” Another delighted laugh is interrupted by this male voice – not the stuttering photographer, someone new – and the door swings open to reveal a tall man in an elegant top hat and dress coat, one Mr Sherlock Holmes. 

At the sight of her, a slow, crooked smirk stretches over his lips and he raises a hand to doff his hat. Her own smile, as usual, is wicked and predatory, not softened by mirth or warmth. He does not miss the way her pupils have become dilated, how her pale cheeks are suddenly flushed and her breathing is heavy, despite the fact that the furthest she has moved is to sit up and forward, presumably to give him a better view of the troublesome corset, or at least what it is supposed to enhance… 

“Me, misbehaving?” The words, which might have indicated ire in anyone else, were accompanied by another lazy smile. “Always.” 

He chuckles and starts to pace the room, running the tips of his long fingers over the mantelpiece, the shelves, the piano, almost as if he is looking for something. A scrunch appears in her brow and she fancies she can hear the photographer’s impending coronary. 

“Why have you come here, Mr Holmes?”

“Isn’t the answer obvious, Miss Adler?” His riposte is almost immediate, although his tone still manages to sound thoughtful, considered. She sits forward again, eyes narrowed in concentration as she looks him over, taking in his expression, his posture, where he has walked, what he has touched. She sees him frown - her brain is undoubtedly extraordinary for her kind, but her tells still stand out a mile off – and she frowns too. “You’re looking for something.” 

She is not wrong, but she is not entirely right, and he lets her know with half a shrug. “I wasn’t-” Again, a half-truth, “-But now I am intrigued. What do you have that you think might be worthy of my time?” 

“Well, I have plenty of things that might be worth the attention of princes themselves,” Irene breathes, getting up and circling him, her eyes narrowed once more. She really needs to do something about that, he thinks to himself. “But your attention? Hmm… You’re not likely to be diverted by jewels or anything so material…” As she thinks, she paces, and he paces too, leaving her to air her deductions as he makes some of his own. 

He returns to the mantelpiece, checks the time, examines the various portraits, the handsome carriage clock, the painting hanging overhead. He lingers a moment, a scrunch in his brow as he scrutinises the brushwork, the colours, the tiny signature in the bottom left hand corner. So that is where it had got to… 

He is roused from his contemplation of the artwork by the photographer. He is watching them uncomfortably as he hastily snatches up all of his equipment, and he is backing towards the exit, tripping over everything as he goes – even his own feet. Sherlock decides to help him on his way; he is only a distraction after all. “Yes, yes,” he says, taking the man by the shoulders and steering him towards the door. “I think you can go now, you’ve probably got what you wanted somewhere on his film. Away with you, away.” He forcibly pushes him from the room and snaps the door shut again with a satisfied click. 

Irene watches him, an amused smirk tugging at her lips. “He was an irksome little man, wasn’t he? But I needed some more pictures taking…”

He hums and reaches out, plucking an older one off the shelf and holding it out. “To replace this one? You don’t like it. That much is clear from where you have placed it, out of sight, but not out of mind, because otherwise you would not have kept it… So it has sentimental value, but no aesthetic value. Am I correct?” 

He is sure he is, and as expected, he is rewarded with a nod. “Yes. The new Tsar had it taken when he was a very young man… When he married the Tsaritsa last year, he sent it back. I am not fond of the picture, but I am fond of the memories of that one winter spent in St Petersburg.” She turns away, drifting back to the mantelpiece and subjecting it to further investigation, presumably to banish such memories from her mind. 

He takes advantage of her back being turned to slip something into his pocket. 

She thinks for a moment, pauses where he had paused for the longest, and looks up, her eyes widening with a realisation. “Ahh… So this is what you have come for.” 

His head snaps up, thinking perhaps he has been caught, and follows her gaze to the painting hung above the fireplace. “And what might I want with that?” he enquires softly. She laughs, thinking it is a test.

“You must have realised that this isn’t a copy, and is in fact the Turner that went missing from the National Gallery last month. One of the guards there is a gentleman friend of mine, and he owed me a favour, so when I took a liking to it… Well, at any rate, Scotland Yard have been on quite the goose chase, and I assume you’ve been hired to track it down, and return it. It is a shame because I felt it rather added to the character of the room… But anyway, do what you must, Mr Holmes. It will make a lovely story for Doctor Watson to put in The Strand.”

It is Sherlock’s turn to laugh. “All of that superb reasoning - your observations are very keen - and yet you have reached the wrong conclusion…” He takes her about the waist and pulls her against him, the hitch of her breath and the blackness of her pupils sending a shiver down his spine. “I have not come here for something that you possess at all. I have come here simply for you, Miss Adler.”

“For me?” Her voice is breathy, her lips now only inches from his. His head starts to swim as he turns his head and runs his nose up the curve of her neck, inhaling her heady perfume. 

“Indeed,” he whispers, “Only for you.”

And yet, despite these affirmations, Sherlock Holmes still leaves with a trophy; the photograph commissioned by Tsar Nicholas. When she had turned back to look at the Turner painting, he had whipped it out of its frame and tucked it safely away, and now, a day later as he sits in his armchair and smokes on his pipe, it rests within his pocket watch so he can carry her with him, always. 

The watch sits open in his lap, he blows smoke rings into the air and studies the picture, the tip of one long finger just tracing over the glass, down her nose, over her cheekbone, following the paths that he had mapped out the day before, skin on skin. 

Somewhere below, a door slams, there are heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. Watson has returned from his afternoon walk. Sherlock gives a great sigh, heavy with regret and reluctance, and takes one last look at the photograph before snapping the watch shut, letting it fall back into his pocket, heavy on the end of its chain.

The time, at last glance, is three forty-seven, pm.


	2. 1547

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the lovely comments left on Chapter One, they really make my day! I am taking requests for chapters, so just stick one in my inbox either here or on tumblr.com (@mydearmoran) and I will do my best to write it for you. 
> 
> This chapter is inspired by the beautiful poem 'They Flee from Me' by Thomas Wyatt, so if you're interested, go along and check it out :)

He knows very little about her; there is no name, not even a face, just broken, refracted images with pieces missing: a snatch of laughter, a breath of heady perfume, a pair of heavily lidded eyes. 

He calls her only The Woman, for that is undeniably what she is – 

Her body haunts his mind; he has all its contours and crevices committed to memory, he sees it when he sleeps and when he wakes, but he knows neither why, nor whom she is. She is only The Woman. 

The parchment is a map for her complexion, pale and unblemished, shadowed by dark, dark hair and lashes – the ink. His cramped, spidery handwriting attempts to bring her to life twofold, spilling shade out to define her features, letting his words frame her in crude metaphors. The only thing missing is the blush that he is sure he has seen in her cheeks – seen where, though? – but lately that has been lent to him by the rosy glow of the dawn. 

When the sun rises, it breaks through the window of his tower chamber and bathes all within with the light of a new day. This poet rises with the sun, or even before, and sometimes he is up to greet it, not having slept. Somehow, The Woman always feels closer at night. She seems to belong between rumpled sheets, to hushed voices and candlelight, to whispered intimacies… 

Yes, he likes that phrase. He brushes his unruly curls out of his eyes and leans forward, dipping his quill in his inkpot and scrawling it down: ‘whispered intimacies’. Yes. He closes his eyes for a moment and he can see, almost feel, her rouged lips at the shell of his ear. He pauses, tenses, strains to hear what she might say, what words she might have to inspire him with, but all too soon the spell is broken. Outside, down in the city, church bells toll the hour and the warmth he was sure he could feel pressing against his back recedes and he is alone once more with only what he can remember. 

A gust of wind blows through the open window and rattles the glass in its panes. The door, slightly ajar on its hinges, bangs shut, and suddenly everything is a little colder. He pulls his furs tighter around his shoulders, trying to keep the draught out. It has started to rain too, the soft pitter-patter almost like the lightest of footsteps…

He shakes off the notion and dips his quill back into the inkpot. A floorboard creaks behind him. 

Her bare feet blue from the cold, her loose white gown slipping from one elegant shoulder, her dark hair tumbling down her back, stands The Woman. The sight of her makes Sherlock bleach as white as her dress. “What kind of apparition are you that you haunt me thus?” 

The lips that he has often tried to write of, lips that are as red as the blood that roars in his veins, redder than any rose, quirk upwards into a smile. A shiver runs down his spine at how familiar the sight is. “I believe, Mr Holmes, I am your muse. I inspire you to write, do I not?” She takes a single step forward, attempting to shrug her sleeve back into place; he stands, his hand already reaching to help. 

“Y-Yes,” he stammers. “Or at least, I try to.” Her skin is warm beneath his fingertips. He does not know why he expected it to be cold, but the spark of heat between their two bodies where flesh meets flesh is a shock. The sleeve slips down towards her elbow again, baring shoulder and breast to him. He stares unabashedly but she does not blush. 

“May I see?” She gestures to the rolls of parchment lying haphazardly across the desk and, without waiting for an invitation, she steps past him and takes the sheaves up, flicking through them with pursed lips. 

“They- My words, my- my attempts, they do not do you justice.” His apology earns him another of her smiles, though it is wry this time, and without humour. 

“No, they don’t.” She discards them and they flutter despondently down to join the rest of his efforts. Turning back to face him, she draws the sleeve up and reaches out to cradle his cheek, brushing her thumb against the bone where it pushes against skin. “I think perhaps you just need… inspiring.” 

She leans in, tantalizingly close now. Her lips are mere millimetres from his own; he can feel her breath whisper against his skin. He is dizzy with desire and with the intoxicating smell of her. His voice catches in his throat as he asks, “Inspiring?” 

When she kisses him, his mind goes blank. The bland, broken lines that hardly deserve to be called poetry flee from him as the reality of her eyes, her hands, her lips - all on him - consume him. 

There are no words for the way it feels to bury his hand in her hair; there are no words to describe the way she truly looks when the troublesome nightgown is dispensed with all together. 

They lie in a tangle of limbs, her leg over his hip, his arm around her back. Two dark heads share one white pillow. The heavy breathing and hot, hard kisses have given way to closed eyes and soft touches, a sleepy kind of contentment.

Lazily, The Woman raises her head from his chest and draws him into a soft kiss. 

“Dear heart,” she asks, “How like you this?” He runs his fingers the length of her spin, counting the vertebrae. 

“I like it very much.” 

He must have fallen asleep, for when he wakes, he is still tangled in the sheets of his narrow bed, but he is alone and he did not notice her leave. If she was ever there at all. His mind is abuzz, cluttered with images, old and new and those that are new have a stunning clarity like he has never known… It is as if he can still feel her under his fingertips, as if he can still taste her on his tongue, as if he can still hear her whisper against his skin, “Dear heart, how like you this?”

He stumbles out of bed, tripping over the sheet, over his own feet in his haste, grabbing a quill, ink, and parchment. Inspiration, she had called it. Whether it was real or a dream, something that happened deep within the recesses of his mind, it had worked.

'They flee from me, that sometime did me seek  
With naked foot stalking within my chamber…'


	3. 1967

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry this took me so long, but I hope you like it now it's finally here. I'm kind of pleased with it, I don't know? Please, please let me know what you think - your comments on the last chapters were so stunning, they really did make my day. Everyone was so nice, I was blushing! 
> 
> This chapter is for the wonderful adler-esque for the Valentine's Fic Exchange on Tumblr. Enjoy!

The stage lights are blinding, a halo of white light around the small platform that Sherlock stands upon while the rest of the room is shrouded in darkness. He can see curls of cigarette smoke, bodies crushed together, dancing, but he can discern no faces, no features. 

The music that he plays is loud. His guitar is hooked up to an amp, the microphone amplifies his voice, the rich bass echoes around the room, and yet the predominant sound is still screaming. Every time he moves from one end of the stage to the other, sweeping his curly hair from his face, kicking out his long legs to punctuate the beat, the girls stop twisting and throw up their arms, hoping to catch his hand, to touch him even for the briefest fraction of a moment. 

From the way he grins, Irene can tell that he loves it. 

She does not scream, nor even sing, but mouths the words, her eyes fixed intently on his as she dances, swinging her hips from side to side almost lazily. She is sure that he cannot see her, but his eyes seem to be fixed right on hers and the crooked grin that he wears as he finishes, pauses, takes a drink, and then prepares to launch into another number, elicits a shiver from her. 

At the combination of chords, another scream goes up, and his grin widens. “I thought this one would be popular…” More screams let him know that he is correct and his smile becomes a smirk, smug and self-satisfied. It only makes him look more handsome.   
Scarves from girls’ hair, or from around their necks, ribbons, even a sheer black stocking, topped with lace end up on the stage as a strange high, a real rush of elation pulses through the audience. 

Irene watches dispassionately as such tawdry tokens are thrown onto the stage. As if they mean anything to him; they are simply desperate attempts at seduction that will never bear fruition. A smirk grows on her face as she considers giving them a lesson in how it should be done properly. 

As she dances, she slides her hands over her hips, still dancing – still twisting – as he continues to play, to entrance, and at the same time, she slides her underwear down her legs.

Before too long, she is stepping out of her knickers, balling the racy red silk up in her hands and waiting purposefully for the end of the song before marching right up to the edge of the stage and flinging them at his feet, turning away with a wink. 

He bends down slowly, hooking them on the end of one long finger, and grins in amusement. “Who ever owns these may collect them from my dressing room at the end of the show…” 

***

As he had predicted, the door to the small room – cupboard, really – that he had been afforded to change in is thronged with women, notepaper or handkerchiefs in hand. Turning the corner, he is met with whispers that rise into excited screams; bodies start jostling, elbows come out… He feels as if he might be about to be caught in a stampede. 

Among them all, only one is silent. She does not even look at him. This piques him, makes irritation flare in his belly – if she is going to pay him no mind, why is she there at all? And yet, as he wants her to watch him, he finds himself watching her instead. She has a compact in hand, angled just so, and she stares at her own reflection intently as she outlines bow-shaped lips with a shade of the most shocking scarlet. 

Somehow, the act seems very intimate. The hustle and bustle, the shouting, the clamour for his attention all recedes into the background as he watches the careful progress of her hand. Finally, he hears a click as the compact is snapped shut and he is snapped back to reality with it. Still, she does not look up. Very slowly, he draws the silky drawers from his pocket. “Yours, I presume?” The colour of her lips is a perfect match to the fabric he holds out. 

His slight, wry smile is matched with a wicked looking smirk and she holds out her hand. “You presume correctly.” There is a pause in which they stand there, stock still amongst all that moves around them, and then she sighs. “Well, you did say you were going to return them, and the last bus leaves in six minutes…”

His smile grows wider as he stuffs the item out of sight again. “I said in my dressing room…” It is an invitation, and yet a challenge too. One he is sure she will welcome. Indeed, her dark eyes narrow and her lips become taut, he assumes that she is thinking of a rebuttal. 

Reluctantly, he makes himself step back and turn away, sweeping towards the door and crooking his finger at the venue manager. He obediently comes trotting over and Sherlock rolls his eyes.

“She can come in to retrieve her… garments. Get rid of the others.” He has grown bored of the shrill adoration; he is interested only in this Woman. 

Without waiting for a confirmation that his demands will be met, he steps into the small but secluded space and snaps the door shut. 

There is just enough room to hang his suit, to prop up his guitars and for him to sit down, the old sofa squashy and threadbare but better than nothing, and he sinks down onto it gratefully, kicking his long legs over the arm and lighting a cigarette.

His eyes close as he takes the first drag, and she moves so silently that he does not hear her come in. He smells her, however; a heady, feminine smell that is out of place in a room that smells of damp and sweat, beer and cigarette smoke. 

“You didn’t play a whole set tonight,” she remarks idly, and he feels the sofa sink even further as she makes herself comfortable in the minute space that is left. “I was waiting and waiting for you to play my favourite, but you never did. You always play it at the end of your shows.”

He sighs. “I ran out of time. Besides, that one is too slow… It would have ruined the atmosphere tonight. You’ve missed your bus.” 

She utters a throaty laugh and reaches out, pinching the half-smoked cigarette from between his lips, settling it between her own and pulling deeply on it. She blows a cloud of smoke coolly towards the ceiling, and when she hands it back, the end bears the imprint of her lips. He does not hesitate to put it back between his own and sigh, eyes now open and fixed on her. 

“How is that funny? How will you get home?” 

“You’ll walk me there, of course,” she says with an easy shrug. “Right to my door, so you know I will be perfectly safe. It’s only the polite thing to do after making me miss my ride, after all.” 

He gives her an indulgent smile and finds himself holding out the end of the cigarette for her to have. “We’ll see.” 

***

He does, of course, though he is not quite sure why. He simply seems to find himself walking down the road, under all the streetlamps, arm in arm with her, her underwear back in place and his coat draped over her shoulders. His guitar is slung over his back by its strap. 

When he gets to her door, he wants to kiss her, but he doesn’t dare. He leans in, his hand cradling her cheek with all the gentleness, all the tenderness that he possesses, but they both pull back at the same time. 

He does not know how, but this journey from various clubs and halls to her home becomes more and more frequent, and the journey from the clubs and halls to his own flat becomes more frequent too. He does kiss her now, and he takes her to bed, and every touch, every word, every look is intoxicating…  
***

Months pass. He sees her every day, has her every night, and then he can go for weeks without catching so much of a glimpse of her. During those times – all the time, really – she is never far from his thoughts. He remembers every exchange, every shared look, every whisper; she practically haunts him, and the only way he can make her a little more real, is to put her to music… 

He is standing on stage; he sweeps his hair back out of his face and reaches for the pint sitting at the edge of the stage. He takes a long gulp and sets it down again, wiping foam away from his mouth and pulling his guitar over his head. The crowd around him boos, disappointed that he is finishing up so soon, and shouts of ‘more!’ quickly follow. He turns towards the bright lights and grins out at them. 

“I have one more song to play for you. It’s a new one, and it’s going to slow things down for you…” Someone hands him his acoustic guitar and he pulls up a stool, sits, and balances it on his knee, clumsily adjusting the microphone. “It’s called… ‘Irene’.” 

Though the white lights are blinding, preventing him from seeing any more than just bodies, masses, really, that dance and sway between the spots in his vision, he is sure that she has not come. He is sure he would be able to smell her, that heavy perfume that fills his senses and makes him dizzy, that lingers between his sheets for days and drives him crazy… No. He cannot smell it, he cannot feel her anywhere nearby, so he can play it, safe in the knowledge that she will never hear how sentimental he has become… 

Sentiment is a defect found in the losing side, after all. 

A hush falls over the hall, everyone waiting with baited breath to hear the new music, and then comes the first chord. Sitting by the bar at the back, purposefully hidden, smoke curls from the end of a lit cigarette as Irene closes her eyes and takes a long drag. 

A smile graces her scarlet lips; the music is beautiful, and it is all for her.


	4. Little Tin Soldiers, Part I: 1916

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I am so, so sorry it has taken me this long to update. I can only hope that the wait was worth it! I have included two chapters to make up for it!
> 
> This is just a little note to say that, unusually for this project, Little Tin Soldiers, covering a period of time during WW1, comes in three instalments. Please look out for the conclusion sometime in mid-July, along with a couple more standalone chapters that I have in the pipeline. 
> 
> I also want to take a second just to thank you all for your support of this fic and for all your kind comments. They really do make my day, so please keep them coming!

Metallic. That is how war smells. The guns, and the canons, and the helmets, the iron-rich scent of spilled blood. It lingers over fields, over whole swathes of torn-up countryside where the young men of Europe and the wider world are losing their lives by the hour, by the minute, by the second. And it lingers here too. 

Although Captain William Sherlock Scott Holmes of the London Regiment is not quite sure where here is. 

It is dark, too dark, and the last thing he remembers is the piercing light that accompanies the break of day, the horizon pink, the air then crisp and clear and perfectly still. He has learned that there is always a curious stillness in the air before an expedition, before a battle. A direct contrast to the men waiting to participate in it; they are jumpy, every muscle, every nerve on edge. Frozen hands clasp the handles of bayonets, pairs of shoddy boots – thinly soled, muddy, riddled with holes – line up, ill-prepared boys quaking within them. Tin helmets all in a row just beneath the parapet. Tin helmets for tin soldiers. 

As he surveys them, waiting for the same thing as they, for the shrill whistle to shatter the silence, to bring the sky down about their ears in a barrage of artillery and a thick cloud of smoke and dirt and dust, he thinks incredulously back to the days when war was just a game. Just child’s play. 

There is the barest hint of a breeze. A sigh, a long, slow release of held breath. It doesn’t quite stir the leaves on the trees. For a moment, birdsong can be heard. Just for a moment, and just faintly, a bittersweet note of hope that is all of a sudden drowned out by the first signal, by the initial burst of artillery fire. 

Left and right, faces bleach, bodies go rigid with fear, with resolve. One boy tries to scramble backwards, eyes wild with panic. There is a dark stain spreading across the front of his breeches. Either side of him, two hands shoot out, grab him by the upper arms, hold him in place; behind lies certain death, cowardly and ignoble, whilst ahead the outcome is unknown. There is a chance, a chance for life if not for glory. That illusion had been shattered long ago, as two Christmases passed and the mud swelled higher and higher in the trenches, as the lists of those missing and dead grew longer and longer. 

He stands poised, waiting for the noise of the guns to die down again, waiting for the second whistle. All they seem to do here is wait. A hand reaches out, fingers curling around one rough wooden rung of the ladder before him, ready to start hauling himself up. It splinters at his touch but he hardly notices that now. The important things to notice will be those when he is over the ladder and into no-man’s-land, the things that will help him stay alive; the distance he must travel, the speed at which he must cross it, the places that the English guns have broken through German defences.

Compulsively, his fingers tighten, the splinters dig in, he is waiting, he is ready, and – 

The whistle sounds in two sharp blasts. It’s time boys, time to go over the top. 

In a scramble of movement that he soon loses track of, he pulls himself up, the men on either side and those right behind him doing the same. 

The assault from the guns had shot clods of earth into the sky, the air is thick with dirt, with smoke. He can hardly see, barely making out the hand that he holds up in front of his face to check, let alone enemy lines and any potential breaches to them. His men are coughing, spluttering, their boots starting to stick and squelch in the residual mud, nothing more than vague and blurry shapes. Some overtake him, some he leaves behind; it makes little sense to stand without protection, just waiting to be shot at. 

Tentatively, he places one foot in front of the other and then again, equally as cautious. No-man’s-land had earned its name; it wasn’t just that it belonged to neither side, that it belonged to no man, it was a place that positively repelled humanity. It was rigged with traps: barbed wire, landmines. One misplaced step and – 

Almost the second that even he begins to think this, there is an explosion. He throws himself to the ground, hands automatically flying to cover his head. More dirt is thrown up into the air, raining back down on top of his helmet in heavy clumps. It is several moments before he dares pick himself up, brush himself down.  
This explosion is soon followed by another and another, blast after blast coming in quick succession, and accompanied by the constant whizz and zip of bullets. He hears shouts, he hears men – his men – falling, and there is nothing he can do to save them. 

No-man’s-land. Yes. There is a reason that the smell of death is strongest here. 

He pushes on through the haze, head ducked, chin angled towards his chest, keeping low to the ground, not even knowing if he is going in the right direction. His eyes are watering, his lungs are filling, he is choking on the falling debris… And then, in explicably, he is greeted by the smell of lilacs. 

Lilacs in this brown, barren land where surely nothing can grow? 

He stumbles towards the source of it, his head spinning. It is dizzying, he is almost drunk on the sweet, fresh smell that had risen seemingly out of nowhere, until it suddenly grows bitter and sharp. Like garlic. 

No, no, something stronger than that. 

He forces himself to stop, closing his eyes and withdrawing deep into the recesses of his mind. Lilac. Garlic? Onion? He tries to process this, to connect, to coalesce, to consolidate these smells, these clues; there is no match to the terrain around here, and certainly no areas where these things might cross over. 

It is the lilacs that are especially confusing. Flowering shrubs have no place here among the dead. The only reason he had heard such a plant mentioned was in whispers, whispers about – 

Not onions. Mustard. 

Brain firing on all cylinders, he interrupts himself in getting to the conclusion with the conclusion itself: mustard gas. 

A cough shakes him back to reality. His lungs are already burning, his skin is already searing as he fumbles for his gas mask. The blurry, brown edges of his vision grow hazier, he pitches forward onto his hands and knees gasping for breath. He doesn’t know which direction is which. 

He doesn’t know where he is, except that he is somewhere in the darkness. 

He can hear the whistling of the shells as they fly through the air, the thuds as they land, explode; the rat-a-tat-tat of the machine guns, pounding like arrhythmic mechanic heartbeats, pumping out bullets that put a stop to the flesh-and-blood hearts of the mere boys that come up against them. Their pulses are as familiar to him as his own, beating in his ears, his wrists, his chest, day and night. 

This, he thinks, is why he doesn’t realise right away that the actual sounds of battle are muted, far off - because he carries them with him all the time.

Closer to him are the coughs and groans of other men, the striking of matches, the spluttering and sputtering of gas lamps, their chains creaking as they are rattled by the wind. It is a curious sensation to hear light, to hear that it must still exist, and yet not to see it. 

Not to see anything at all. 

An exploratory hand creeps up, finds his head knotted with coarse strips of cotton, dirty and crusted with blood. There is that smell again, the tang of iron that gives it away, just discernible under the sharp, cloying odour of disinfectant. 

His nose and throat had already been burning, now it feels as if they are aflame. 

*

Days pass. Days, perhaps a week, perhaps longer. It is hard to keep track without his sight, when he is drifting in and out of consciousness, not really able to tell when he is awake and when he is not aside from the severity of the pain he is in. 

He wakes – at least, he thinks he wakes – one day (or it could be one night, he cannot tell that either) with a terrible cough. It shakes him from his stupor, brings him round with a groan, brings him round to find that the smell has changed.

He is learning to tell a lot by smell, it is more reliable in many ways than what he can hear, what he can feel. 

And now it smells like home. Of tea and roses, like an English garden, a veritable Eden in the midst of this hell. Tea and roses accompanied by the rustle of stiff, starched material, by the sound of someone humming. 

Someone? Something? An angel, perhaps. Or a ghost, a ghoul. Holmes was not superstitious in the slightest, he did not believe in the supernatural, but a place like this, surely, must have its ghosts? 

“Have you come to kill me too?” he asks. Of course, after the lilacs, he is suspicious of anything or anyone who smells so appealing, so attractive, so out of place. Every syllable grates against his blistered throat, every breath is laboured. He has to pause before he can listen for an answer, doubling forward and delivering a hacking cough. 

A small hand comes to rest on his back in the spot between his shoulder blades, rubbing in slow, soothing circles. “No, Captain.” The promise is equally as gentle, almost inaudible beneath the rattle of shells and bullets, beneath the moans and groans of all the men. It sounds like it is coming from far away, from somewhere above his left ear, muffled by the swathe of bandages bound about his temples. “I am not. You have been brought to the hospital, and I am here to help you.” The touch is light, the voice is light, again he fears that he may be imagining things, yet when he listens, when he really listens, he knows for the first time that it must be real. 

Because this is a voice that he could not have conjured up by himself. Because her voice is undeniably the voice of a Woman.


	5. Little Tin Soldiers, Part II: 1918

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I am so, so sorry it has taken me this long to update. I can only hope that the wait was worth it! I have included two chapters to make up for it!
> 
> This is just a little note to say that, unusually for this project, Little Tin Soldiers, covering a period of time during WW1, comes in three instalments. Please look out for the conclusion sometime in mid-July, along with a couple more standalone chapters that I have in the pipeline.
> 
> I also want to take a second just to thank you all for your support of this fic and for all your kind comments. They really do make my day, so please keep them coming!

Although he has never set eyes on it, Holmes knows every inch, every angle, every plane of her face. He knows her body, and intimately. 

They lie side by side, bared to one another. He is propped up on one elbow, one finger resting just at the peak of her forehead. Very slowly, he draws it down, down between her brows, along the bridge of her nose, right along to its very tip, and then down again until he reaches her lips. There he pauses, then slides his whole hand up to cradle his cheek, threading his fingers into her hair. His thumb now brushes over her lower lip, and holds her like this. Blind, choosing not to speak, just feeling her there. 

It reminds him of the very first time. 

She had come to him in the field hospital, bearing the scent of tea and roses, her starched skirts a-rustle, humming, always humming the same few bars of a melody that he thinks is vaguely familiar. He never asks what it is. He has to save his breath for the important things. 

He remembers how he asked her for her name instead and how her hands stilled over the task of unwrapping his bandages, her voice low as she replied, “Irene.” Despite the way that the movement pulled at his tortured skin, he remembers smiling. 

“Irene? That’s more than a touch ironic here, i- i- isn’t it?” A cough, a splutter, her hands hurry to his back, rubbing, soothing. “Eirene, the ancient Greek word for -” He tries to keep going, to soldier on, but once more he is cut off, so she finishes his sentence for him. 

“For peace, yes. As you say, rather ironic in such circumstances. Are you quite finished?” He thinks perhaps he can hear a smile in her voice too, but then her fingers are back to probing at the bandages and stubbornly he turns his face to the side, lucid for a change, in no mood to be poked and prodded. The petulant pout, a trademark of his, settles on his lips, his whole body curls to the side, shoulders hunched up about his ears. 

“Speaking of peace, I’d quite like some.”  
“Wouldn’t we all?” Her tone is brusque, not softened by sympathy. She grasps his chin between her slender fingers and jerks his head back with surprising force. “Now, these need changing, and you are going to let me change them.” On the way to unknotting the bindings around his eyes, her hand stops to cradle his cheek, helping guide his head back to lie flat on the sack-cloth pillow beneath. The material is rough, it scratches the back of his neck, but this time he does not protest aloud. He is preparing just to sulk in silence when he notices that she has not withdrawn her hand. 

The pillow is rough on the back of his neck, but her skin is soft against his, not hardened or cracked by work. He has the sudden desire to reciprocate and, with clumsy, fumbling movements, each accompanied by a hiss of pain, he manages it, fingers curling just behind her ear. The protrusion of her cheekbone fits almost perfectly into his palm. His thumb dips lower, catching her bottom lip. 

Nothing is said. 

He is aware that she is looking at him and he attempts to discern her expression using just the tip of his fingers. Then, she was frowning. Now, two years later, in a time of relative peace, lying between the sheets of their shared bed, he can feel her smiling. 

His finger continues its journey south from her lips, over the rise of her chin, down the column of her throat. He traces the bone of her sternum where it stands out against her skin, diverts lazily to skim over each breast, circling her nipples until he feels them stiffen into peaks beneath his touch. Irene makes the slightest noise, a small but sharp intake of breath, and he grins, leaving them be again, spiralling his fingers down towards her stomach instead. 

They had remained in France after he was discharged from active duty, he because he could not face the journey home, knowing all that had once been so familiar to him would be forever lost to a blackness he could not see beyond, and she because she had nothing to go back to in the first place. 

The first night they spent in this apartment, they had only the mattress they are now lying on; nothing else, not even curtains or blinds, furnished either of their two rooms and so they lay that night drenched in moonlight. Irene, her head pillowed against his chest, her legs tangled between his, foot rubbing lightly against his calf, tells him how this looks dappled on the wooden floor. She tells him what had happened to the man she was supposed to marry. 

He had died at the First Battle of Ypres, three months into the war – or, at least, that is what is presumed to have happened. Missing presumed dead, is what the letter actually said, but a year and then two years passed and there was no new evidence to suggest that he might have survived. In fact, there was nothing, no word at all. The night she tells him, it has been three years since the letter arrived. Four years on, she no longer wears his ring, or any ring at all. 

Holmes will not marry her, and she does not ask him to. The people of the town call her his madame, his mistress. She is not; she is simply his Woman. They both understand how this is different, even if others around them do not. 

It is not all about lust, carnality, the weaknesses of the flesh. The mutual attraction of their minds far transcends that of their bodies. Though that is not to say the temptations are not there altogether, nor that they are not given in to. 

His finger continues to skim lower, trailing down from her navel, down, down, down, only darting off course when it meets the dark triangle of hair at the juncture of her legs. He chooses instead to run over the crease of her hip and along her thigh. The breath that she has been holding all this while, anticipating what is to come, is released through her teeth, almost like a growl. Clearly she thinks he is teasing her. And maybe he is, just a little. 

With a bite of laughter, he slows his ministrations even more, and when he finally reaches her knee, his fingers fan out, his whole hand comes to grip her behind the knee, hitching it over his hip so that he can continue all the way down to her foot, to the very tips of her toes.

Though practiced, the movements are far from smooth. As he tries to get her leg over his, his hand slips, fumbles, struggling to find the right place to hold her. He is huffing, cursing under his breath, never mind that there is a lady present; he just gets so frustrated, stuck unable to see. Subtly, without saying a word, she eases them through transition, placing herself the way that he wants her with a delicate kiss to his jaw.

Sometimes, though not at times like these, he thinks that his blindness might be a blessing; it has sharpened his other senses, making his nose keen, his hearing acute, and his ability to feel now goes way beyond what he had once thought possible. Being blind means that he can love her mind without the distraction of exterior beauty. He knows her face, he knows her body, every curve, every crevice of it. He knows that she must be beautiful because he has felt the exquisite symmetry of her beneath his fingers, but her words, her wit, are what entrap him, keep him riveted, hanging on for more. 

They converse in English and French and it is more like duelling, with thrusts and parries, ripostes and repartee, each one of them trying to gain the upper hand; sometimes they flit from one tongue to the other and back again, mid-conversation, mid-debate, to keep each other on their toes. 

When they are tired, they lie like they are now, limbs draped lazily over one another, thin cotton sheets twisted around them. Sometimes they lie in silence, sometimes they put the wireless on. They have furnished the place a little more now. Sometimes Irene will read to him, her voice low, just a whisper against his ear, a whisper through the darkness. There are no shells, no bullets, no canons here to obscure it. 

Irene means peace, and that is what she means to him too.


End file.
